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Ivan Reitman Has Ideas On How To Fix Ghostbusters Franchise

A few days on from Dan Aykroyd's comments about what went wrong with last year's Ghostbusters reboot, Ivan Reitman has revealed his plans on how to proceed with the franchise.

"What we've been doing a lot of is thinking about the franchise rights for Ghostbusters. Because Ghostbusters, that idea doesn't have to just take place in New York, it can happen over the world. I think it would be really cool to see Korean ghosts or Chinese ghosts. All those great traditions in the world have all these tales and things those people are afraid of. To have a sort of local group of Ghostbusters that tie with the head office in New York would be fun.

We're doing a lot of work about where do we go next with Ghostbusters. I think one thing that fans have clearly wanted, and so did I, that somehow we tie the worlds together. I think it was a little awkward that it wasn't connected, and we certainly heard a lot from everybody out there. So I would definitely want to connect to all of that."

I say this as a massive fan of Ivan Reitman's two Ghostbusters movies, but I don't think the lack of the original cast was the missing ingredient from the reboot. Like many fans, the tragic passing of Harold Ramis in 2014 meant Ghostbusters 3 would never happen. Sony wisely opted for a reboot, but (for me) the biggest error was not having any connective tissue to the original. I'm not advocating that I wanted to see Aykroyd, Murray and Hudson suit up again, but we could have had them reprise their roles in cameos to pass the torch to the next generation.

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For something that was determined to be a fresh start, the marketing told us that "30 years ago, four scientists saved New York this summer a new team will answer the call". Now I'm no Sherlock, but that heavily suggests that the new movie exists in the same world as the first two. It wasn't.

Even Melissa McMarthy found the trailer misleading and clarified that the new movie was an original take on the material.

"I know its weird that they say [in the trailer] 30 years ago, but in this movie, it is like the first one didn't happen. It's a great story, but it's told totally differently. It's four unlikely heroes; it's in New York City, ghosts are taking over; it's that same classic story, but it's not 30 years later ... it's not dependent on the first one."

Unlike the vast majority of the internet, I was rooting for the new Ghostbusters to be good, even after the first trailer suggested otherwise. At this stage, it remains unclear if Sony would consider making another Ghostbusters movie with the current cast. So we'll have to wait and see if Reitman and Aykroyd can convince Sony to move forward with the franchise.